Amazon Kindle Out Till February, Coincidence?

According to Amazon and many folks behind the scenes, Amazon Kindle is now out until late February. Amazon has announced that they simply can’t get things in stock sooner. Now, I had a story a while back about Kindle 2.0 coming 0ut in May 2009. By my estimation, 13 weeks from now is awfully close to the release date of the 2nd generation Kindle. Coincidence?

We have no indication that Amazon is planning to postpone the release of Kindle 2.0. And I fully expect us to have more information, including more pictures, by next March. So, why is Amazon still selling Kindle 1.0?

Here is what I think. I think Amazon had a magic sales number in mind for Kindle 1.0. I firmly believe that Amazon is going to sell as much as possible to get as close as possible to that number. After that, they are going to announce that Kindle 1.0 is out of stock for good and introduce Kindle 2.0. If that is the plan, and the 2nd gen Kindle is priced lower than the first gen one, there will be a few unhappy customers (Apple learned the hard way.)

What’s your take: Should Amazon Keep selling Kindle 1.0 knowing that they will not be shipping it in 3 months, considering that Kindle 2.0 may be out in May?